Our house is rather strange. half of it was build in 1920, the other half (the whole 2nd storey and the kitchen addition) was built in the 70's. The entire layout of the house is... different than any other home we've lived in.
This might be long and a little confusing, but bear with me.
So a little background info- we went on vacation and left our home in the hands with someone we thought we could trust- along with our dogs, cats and houseplants. We came home and our dog had eaten a bottle of vitamins and had vile diarrhea all over our upstairs. We filed a claim with our insurance to have the carpets replaced and we are waiting on the adjuster to come view the damages.
So that upstairs is one big room. Kinda like a loft, but it's all one master bedroom with a small 2-piece ensuite, and it's where we used to sleep. Now, since we've been forced out of that room, we've moved our mattress downstairs into the den/baby room (that she never slept in, it was more of a storage space) And we've decided that it's a better arrangement for us. It;s a small room, maybe 10' x 12', but who needs a huge bedroom if all you do in there is sleep?
So this is what I'm trying to figure out: what should we do with our space to maximize it and make it as livable as possible?
So far these are our ideas:
1. kitchen and bathroom on main floor stay the same, obviously.
2. Current living room has a couch, a glider, coffee table and TV stand, and a small end table with the telephone and Yellow Pages
3. Den has our mattress, crib (never been used, don't know why it hasn't made it's way to the basement or kijiji yet), Lyra's dresser and changing area. I'd like to move our clothing into this room to make it an exclusive family bed/changing room. Since the room is small, I'm not sure how to get our clothing into the equation without it looking really disorganized and.. frankly ugly. i don't like clothes to be seen unless they are being worn.
4.Upstairs, is currently empty with the exception of my treadmill and yoga amt and a few free weights. The room is about 600-700 square feet, and has a staircase coming right through the middle, so it's U-Shaped. Here's a panoramic I took of it last year, Imagine it empty
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7145286_n.jpg
I think ideally I'd like to turn this space into a rec room, bring the television up here and get a futon or something so it can double as guest sleeping space, and so the TV isn't in the main living room. I think TVs are ugly (especially huge tube tv's) and if we have guests over, we won't need it there anyways. We can bring the baby toys up there, and the computer desk to go in the smaller area to the left near the closet. The walk-in could be used for media storage, games, unused toys, etc. there is two shelves in there and there is room for a small book case
BBBUt I'm not sure about any of these. Can you simplifying and organizing mamas help me figure out what to do to make the most of our space?
I'll add that we have extra storage and an unfinished, low ceiling (6ft) basement that isn't usable for living space but offers lots of storage room.
This might be long and a little confusing, but bear with me.
So a little background info- we went on vacation and left our home in the hands with someone we thought we could trust- along with our dogs, cats and houseplants. We came home and our dog had eaten a bottle of vitamins and had vile diarrhea all over our upstairs. We filed a claim with our insurance to have the carpets replaced and we are waiting on the adjuster to come view the damages.
So that upstairs is one big room. Kinda like a loft, but it's all one master bedroom with a small 2-piece ensuite, and it's where we used to sleep. Now, since we've been forced out of that room, we've moved our mattress downstairs into the den/baby room (that she never slept in, it was more of a storage space) And we've decided that it's a better arrangement for us. It;s a small room, maybe 10' x 12', but who needs a huge bedroom if all you do in there is sleep?
So this is what I'm trying to figure out: what should we do with our space to maximize it and make it as livable as possible?
So far these are our ideas:
1. kitchen and bathroom on main floor stay the same, obviously.
2. Current living room has a couch, a glider, coffee table and TV stand, and a small end table with the telephone and Yellow Pages
3. Den has our mattress, crib (never been used, don't know why it hasn't made it's way to the basement or kijiji yet), Lyra's dresser and changing area. I'd like to move our clothing into this room to make it an exclusive family bed/changing room. Since the room is small, I'm not sure how to get our clothing into the equation without it looking really disorganized and.. frankly ugly. i don't like clothes to be seen unless they are being worn.
4.Upstairs, is currently empty with the exception of my treadmill and yoga amt and a few free weights. The room is about 600-700 square feet, and has a staircase coming right through the middle, so it's U-Shaped. Here's a panoramic I took of it last year, Imagine it empty
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7145286_n.jpg
I think ideally I'd like to turn this space into a rec room, bring the television up here and get a futon or something so it can double as guest sleeping space, and so the TV isn't in the main living room. I think TVs are ugly (especially huge tube tv's) and if we have guests over, we won't need it there anyways. We can bring the baby toys up there, and the computer desk to go in the smaller area to the left near the closet. The walk-in could be used for media storage, games, unused toys, etc. there is two shelves in there and there is room for a small book case
BBBUt I'm not sure about any of these. Can you simplifying and organizing mamas help me figure out what to do to make the most of our space?
I'll add that we have extra storage and an unfinished, low ceiling (6ft) basement that isn't usable for living space but offers lots of storage room.
